Chicago participated in Earth Hour this year where several major cities shut off non essential lights from 8 to 9 pm on March 29th. The results, though interesting, were a bit underwhelming. But thinking about it, it would be very hard for the entire city to go dark for an hour.I did learn something: it is very hard to take pictures in the dark when you can't see the readout on your camera. I assume there is some sort of back light feature on my camera, but it was dark (and cold) so I couldn't figure it out in time to get really great shots.
During Earth Hour
In the "before" shot it looks like the Sears Tower has already gone dark, but I know they didn't dim the lights on the antennae until 8 o'clock on the dot. The after shot, though set at a different speed, so not identical to the "before," does show the lights on some buildings no longer on. The big bright low slung cube dead center in the shot is a parking garage, turning off their lights would have been a safety issue, but would have made for a more dramatic shot. The medium height building with the two spires on either side is the AT&T building, I hadn't realized they had dimmed their lights until after I downloaded my pictures.The very bright building to the right with the statue on top is the Chicago Board of Trade, there is no reason they couldn't have lost some lights. To the far right the dark building with a couple lights on in the "before" shot is a condo building, there's no way to know if the lights were doused because of Earth Hour or because the occupants had left the premises, again the very bright cube at the bottom of the building is the parking garage.
The whole thing wasn't visually stunning, but according to ComEd the city did cut its power usage during that hour by 5%.
No comments:
Post a Comment